Liking the prairies is easier than one might guess, getting used to city living is a different story.

You are awesome (yes, you)

I was very pleased to see that the last three I AM AWESOME! tabs from the Hulk Hogan poster in the elevator at work have been yanked off sometime today between 7:45 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. Yay!

Also I was pleased to see that the poster outside of the elevator on the 1st floor with a smiling icon-man walking up stairs, with the slogan “Have You Taken The Stairs Lately?” has been shredded by what looks like a large cat. Mwahahaaa. I thought it was funny and by the time I picked up the camera to preserve that moment for all time it had been removed. No matter, there are four floors, four elevators, and four shameful posters. Well, three posters.

Okay, two posters since I reproduced the tattered state of the first poster I saw as best I could from memory. For posterity. I didn’t tear it originally but I did have plans to deface it. My defacing plans were to write a word-bubble on a sticky note that came out of stick-man’s head that would say “nope.” I think the shredded poster, held up by a few remains of original tape, sends a clearer message home.

It’s not like even 10% of employees in my office are overweight. For crying out loud there’s so many people who walk or cycle to work. To this day I cannot wash the image out of my brain of a co-worker getting ready to bicycle home at the end of the day at least four years ago. He caught me glancing at his legs and he said, “yeah, I’m pretty skinny, right?” What’s the right thing to say to that when clearly his spandex shorts were flapping in the wind? My point is if I walked two miles to work or bicycled 8 km and treated myself to an elevator ride I’d be shredding the poster too.

The placement of the guilt-inducing “Have You Taken The Stairs Lately” posters right outside of the elevators was a low blow, and I like to think the WHO IS AWESOME? YOU ARE AWESOME! poster in the elevator validated the down-trodden folks who still took the elevator. I wish I could see the expressions on their faces. I imagine it went like this: person walks up to the elevator thinking about work-related tasks with maybe a furrowed brow, sees the bright red shame-on-you poster with the stupid smiling man with a heart two sizes too big and decides to take the elevator anyway, and their facial expression changes to quivering chin and probably rapid blinking as they press the elevator button and consider how they have not only failed at lifestyle perfection but they have let their father / son / cat / therapist / junior high teacher who really believed in them down, then a look of disbelief as Hulk Hogan welcomes them into the elevator, and they look over both shoulders and then point to themselves as they mouth “me?”; the disbelief erupts into pure joy and unabashed self-esteem as they discover that Hulk Hogan, paragon of virtue and physical fitness, thinks that they, yes they, are awesome.